In this July 27, 2013, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a mass military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

(Newser)
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Parents outraged by Common Core can at least be glad their kids aren't being schooled in North Korea. The Telegraph reports that middle school and high school teachers there have been issued a manual to use while teaching a new subject for 2015: "Kim Jong Un's Revolutionary Activities." The manual contains details of Kim Jong Un's childhood—specifically, the amazing story of how he was driving by age 3, per YTN TV. It also notes that Kim is an awesome artist, pens musical scores, and was acing yachting races before puberty. "At the age of 9, Kim Jong Un raced the chief executive of a foreign yacht company who was visiting North Korea at the time," one of the passages reportedly reads (he won that race "despite the odds," per Metro).

This inherent ability to win at life apparently runs in the family: The Telegraph brings up old claims that were made about Kim's father. Kim Jong Il supposedly walked at 3 weeks of age, talked at 8 weeks, wrote six operas, and penned 1,500 books during his three-year college tenure (take that, L. Ron Hubbard). But a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University thinks the new curriculum is less about genealogical bragging rights and more about panicked propaganda. "Not many people in the North have respect for Mr. Kim, so children are being taught how great and powerful he is," Toshimitsu Shigemura tells the Telegraph. "The children believe it, of course, but the teachers have no choice but to believe it." (In other just-like-dad news, Kim Jong Un is reportedly recruiting new talent to what has become known as the "pleasure squad.")